Genesis 30:15

Summary

Leah responds to Rachel's request for the mandrakes with a rhetorical question, protesting that Rachel has already taken her husband. Rachel then agrees to a trade: Jacob will sleep with Leah that night in exchange for the mandrakes.

Key words

• m'at ("small", H4592) — used here after the interrogative ha (H9008) to form a rhetorical question, literally "is it a small thing that...", implying indignation at what is being questioned.
• qachteh ("your taking", H3947G) — infinitive construct with pronominal suffix kh ("you", H9042), turning the verb "to take" into a noun-like action ("your taking") that serves as the subject of Leah's rhetorical question.
• laqachat ("to take", H3947G) — a second infinitive of the same root, paired with gam ("also", H1571), extending the accusation to a second act of taking (the mandrakes).
• lakhen ("therefore", H3651C) — adverb opening Rachel's reply, marking her response as a direct consequence or agreement following from Leah's complaint.
• tachat ("for/instead of", H8478H) — construct noun functioning prepositionally, establishing the exchange: the night with Jacob "in place of" the mandrakes.

What the text says

The Hebrew sentence structure places two infinitive constructs back-to-back — qachtekh ("your taking") governing "my husband" (ishi, H0376H with suffix), and laqachat ("to take") governing "also the mandrakes of my son" (dudaei beni). Both are grammatically nominal (infinitives functioning as verbal nouns), which the interrogative ha-m'at frames as a single rhetorical complaint: "Is your taking my husband a small thing, and [also] to take also the mandrakes of my son?" This doubling of the same root (H3947G) in two infinitive forms creates a parallel structure that Hebrew narrative sentences use to stack accusations without needing a second finite verb.

Rachel's answer begins with lakhen ("therefore"), a term that signals her statement is a direct response or conditional agreement, not merely a continuation. The clause yishkav 'immakh halaylah tachat dudaei benekh ("he will lie with you this night in place of the mandrakes of your son") uses the construct noun tachat to express exchange — literally "under/in the place of" — linking Jacob's presence that night to the mandrakes as compensation. The verb yishkav (H7901I) is an imperfect form, expressing an action agreed upon for that specific coming night.

Differences between versions

The LXX explicitly inserts the name "Leah" (Λεία) as the subject of the first speech, while the Hebrew text only has vatomer ("she said", H0559) without a named subject — the referent is inferred from the surrounding narrative. The LXX also phrases Leah's rhetorical question as a statement-question, "οὐχ ἱκανόν σοι" ("is it not sufficient for you"), which conveys a similar rhetorical force to the Hebrew ha-m'at but uses a different lexical base (ἱκανός, "sufficient/enough") rather than a term paralleling "small" (H4592).